Google Algorithm

History of Updates: Panda, Penguin, Hummingbird, Pigeon

2017 Google Algorithm Updates & Changes

Google rolled out what appeared to be a major update, with reports of widespread impacts across the SEO community. Gary Illyes jokingly referred to is as “Fred”, and the name stuck, but he later made it clear that this was not an official confirmation.

Algorithm changes beginning on February 1st continued for a full week, peaking around February 6th (some reported the 7th). Webmaster chatter and industry case studies suggest these were separate events.

There was a period of heavy algorithm flux starting around February 1st and peaking around February 6th. It is unclear whether this was multiple algorithm updates or a single update with an extended roll-out, but anecdotal evidence suggests at least two updates.

Google started rolling out a penalty to punish aggressive interstitials and pop-ups that might damage the mobile user experience. Google also provided a rare warning of this update five months in advance. MozCast showed high temperatures from January 10-11, but many SEOs reported minimal impact on sites that should have been affected.

MozCast detected a major (106°) spike on November 10th and another on the 18th. Industry chatter was high during both periods, with some suggesting that the second spike was a reversal of the first update. Google has not confirmed either event. Many people reported bad dates in SERPs during the same time period, but it’s unclear whether this was causal or just a coincidence.

Penguin 4.0, Phase 2 — October 6, 2016

The second phase of Penguin 4.0 was the reversal of all previous Penguin penalties. This seemed to happen after the new code rolled out, and may have taken as long as two weeks. Post-Penguin activity had one final peak on October 6th (116°), but it is unclear whether this was Penguin or a new update. Algorithm temperatures finally started to drop after October 6th.

The first phase of Penguin 4.0, which probably launched around September 22-23, was the rollout of the new, “gentler” Penguin algorithm, which devalues bad links instead of penalizing sites. The exact timeline is unconfirmed, but we believe this rollout took at least a few days to fully update, and may have corresponded to an algorithm temperature spike (113°) on September 27th.

After almost two years of waiting, Google finally announced a major Penguin update. They suggested the new Penguin is now real-time and baked into the “core” algorithm. Initial impact assessments were small, but it was later revealed that the Penguin 4.0 rollout was unusually long and multi-phase (see September 27th and October 6th).

MozCast recorded a nearly-record 111° temperature and a 50% drop in SERPs with image (universal/vertical) results. The universal result shake-up opened up an organic position on page 1, causing substantial ranking shifts, but it’s likely that this was part of a much larger update.

While unconfirmed by Google, MozCast recorded extreme temperatures of 108° and a drop in local pack prevalence, and the local SEO community noted a major shake-up in pack results. Data suggests this update (or a simultaneous update) also heavily impacted organic results.

Just more than a year after the original “mobile friendly” update, Google rolled out another ranking signal boost to benefit mobile-friendly sites on mobile search. Since the majority of sites we track are already mobile-friendly, it’s likely the impact of the latest update was small.

MozCast and other Google weather trackers showed a historically rare week-long pattern of algorithm activity, including a 97-degree spike. Google would not confirm this update, and no explanation is currently available.

Google made major changes to AdWords, removing right-column ads entirely and rolling out 4-ad top blocks on many commercial searches. While this was a paid search update, it had significant implications for CTR for both paid and organic results, especially on competitive keywords.

Multiple tracking tools (including MozCast) reported historically-large rankings movement, which Google later confirmed as a “core algo update”. Google officially said that this was not a Penguin update, but details remain sketchy.

Google made a major announcement, revealing that machine learning had been a part of the algorithm for months, contributing to the 3rd most influential ranking factor. This is an announcement date – the actual launch was closer to spring 2015.

March 14, 2013
Last update before Panda got inculcated into the core algorithm. Google Panda stopped low quality sites from ranking prominently. It is heavily influenced by (human) Google Quality Raters. One of the questions these Raters had to answer was “would I trust this site with my credit card?”

Panda/Unnamed Update

January 22, 2013
Impacts 1.2% of queries affected. Not confirmed at the time.

August 10, 2012
The June and July Search Quality Highlights were announced simultaneously. There were Panda data and algorithm changes and targeted ranking boosts for certain websites deemed highly trustworthy.

August 10, 2012
Company start penalizing websites with a history of copyright violations via DMCA requests. If you are curious as to whether you have incurred such a penalty the search company offers a page dedicated to transparency outlining the latest reports of DMCA violations.

October 18, 2011
Google start encrypting search queries for privacy. This disrupted data, returning “(not provided)” for organic search traffic at a staggering rate over a short amount of time (see below).

Panda “Flux” Update #8

October 5, 2011
Effected around 2% of search queries.

Panda Update 2.5

September 28, 2011
A handful of websites reported major traffic losses as a result of this Update.

516 Algo Updates Divulged in Congress by Eric Schmidt

September 21, 2011
CEO Eric Schmidt tells the US Congress that the search engine made 516 updates in 2010 alone. Additionally they tested a total of 13,000 updates.

Rel=”next” and Rel=”prev” Pagination Elements

September 15, 2011
Google introduce rel=”next” and rel=”prev” link attributes. Google announced that they had worked on improving consolidation for “View All” pages.